Opera Saratoga America Sings! “A Juneteenth Eve Celebration"

AMERICA SINGS is a concert series that amplifies the voices of BIPOC artists, who have historically been underrepresented on the concert stage. Each event will feature a wide array of classical, jazz, and popular music. AMERICA SINGS concerts will be hosted in partnership with Caffè Lena, and will also be live-streamed to the public for free, but viewers are encouraged to contribute through a virtual donation to support both Opera Saratoga and this concert series.

Carl DuPont is an artist, innovator, and educator dedicated to Transformational Inclusion and Care of the Professional Voice. His “rich, nuanced baritone” (Columbus Underground) has held center stage in performances at the Glimmerglass Festival, Opera Carolina, Opera Columbus, First Coast Opera, Toledo Opera, Opera Saratoga, Sarasota Opera, Cedar Rapids Opera, El Palacio de Bellas Artes, Opera Company of Brooklyn, The IN Series, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and Leipzig Opera. Recent roles include Hawkins Fuller in Fellow Travelers, Don Basilio in The Barber of Seville, and Leporello in Don Giovanni. His articles can be found in The Laryngoscope and the Voice and Speech Review. DuPont can be heard on the world premiere recordings of the Caldara Mass in A Major, The Death of Webern, and his solo album, The Reaction. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music (BM), Indiana University (MM), and the University of Miami (DMA), he currently serves on the faculties of the Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Institute and the Executive Education division of the Carey School of Business. DuPont also teaches at the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival and is the co-artistic director for the Kennedy Center’s Washington National Opera Initiative. This season he joined Annapolis Opera Company as Stephen Kumalo in Lost in the Stars and sang the baritone solo in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra. He will return to Bach in Baltimore in the St. John’s Passion and reprise the title role in Mendelssohn’s Elijah for the Baltimore Choral Society.

Pianist, Gregory Thompson is known for his work as a Solo and Collaborative artist in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Of his Carnegie Hall debut, the NY Times praised his “intuitive playing”, and his ability to “make a melodic line sing and inflect it with delicate rubato effects” (NY Times). His international performance credits include concerts at Marmolle Hall, Salzburg; The Atelier Concert Series, Paris; and at the Teatro Signorelli. In the U.S., he has played at Weill and Zankel Halls, NYC as well as Steinway Galleries in NC and GA. His varied repertoire ranges from Beethoven and Schubert to Prokofiev, George Walker, and Adolphus Hailstork. Artists with whom he has collaborated include singers Grace Bumbry, Allan Glassman, Russell Thomas, as well as woodwind faculty members of Austria’s Mozarteum. His concerto performances have included Baltimore Symphony, South Carolina Philharmonic, and Charlotte Philharmonic Orchestras. Thompson delivers performances that engage listeners in the creative process of shaping their own narratives and uncovering their own truths in the music. Thompson holds degrees from Peabody Conservatory, Limestone College, and The University of South Carolina. As a committed educator, he has served on the faculties of colleges and universities in Ohio, as well as North and South Carolinas.